EU integration and party politics in the Balkans. EPC Issue Paper No.77, September 2014

Throughout the Balkan region, popularly elected leaders consistently fail to meet the democratic standards set by the EU and, more importantly, they fall short of their voters’ expectations. Distrust in representative institutions and disengagement from political life runs dramatically high among the people of the Balkan countries, and this generalised sense of dissatisfaction is starting to breed cynicism also towards the idea of a better future inside the Union. This study highlights the interplay between EU integration and national politics in the region, and that both are consequential for the quality of Balkan democracies, as well as reminiscent of the Western and Central and Eastern European experience.

Recent Changes in European Welfare State Services: A Comparison of Child Care Politics in the U.K., Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands. CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 07.6, 1997

This paper examines recent policies and politics of services, in particular child care services in European welfare states. It is argued that social (care) services are becoming an increasingly political issue in postindustrial societies and are at the very center of welfare-state restructuring. Some countries have recently developed new policy pro­ grams for child care-but there are important differences among these programs. To understand these differences as well as some common features, the paper argues that it is necessary to examine the institutional organization of child care and short-term political factors as well as the rationales articulated in political debates to support or im­ pede various policies. The paper concludes that a comprehensive system of child care provisions is still far off in most countries, despite a rhetoric of choice and postindustrial care and labor-market patterns.

Greece as an example of “post-politics” in the eurozone. EPIN Commentary No. 28/9 November 2015

The negotiations between Greece and the EU and IMF tested the unity, limits, stamina and financial interdependence of eurozone member states. Greece emerged wounded from the fray, but Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has established beyond doubt his dominance in Greek politics, in defiance of partisan competitors at home and his counterparts’ wishes in the rest of Europe. In this EPIN Commentary the authors argue that – beyond the political significance of SYRIZA’s third electoral victory in seven months – this vote of confidence brings certain characteristics of both Greek and EU politics into sharper relief. The high-risk political activism undertaken by Syriza’s leadership in the first half of 2015 has (re)opened the debate about what kind of EU we live in, and contributed to the creation of another type of discourse in Europe – one that has so far been the preserve of established elites.

Review of the Economic Development in the Western Balkan States. OSW STUDIES No. 19, 2005-08-10

Foreword. Ten years after the end of the armed conflict, the Western Balkans1 are still being considered as the “land of the unsuccessful policies”. Enormous financial and technical assistance transferred by the International Community has not managed to meet the goals of integrating the region within itself as well as within the European markets. Explanation for this can be found in the consequences of the war and the remnants of the socialist state. The complexity of current institutional/ political arrangements combined with the limited willingness of the regional actors to introduce and implement much of the needed reforms have additionally contributed to the current state of affairs. The economy and politics in the region intertwine to an extent as probably in none of the other post-communist states. Therefore, the paper presents the recent economic performance of the Western Balkan countries in the light of their limited institutional development and lack of efficient regional cooperation. The paper discusses the importance of foreign direct investments’ inflow for the economic growth of the “latecomer” states and presents major drawbacks which limit the influx of the foreign capital to the region. It presents private sector activity and regional cooperation programmes. It discusses the role of the International Community with the main focus on the activities of the European Union. The EU is examined not only as the main aid donor but more importantly as a foreign trade partner. Furthermore, it analyses the impact of the presence of the International Community and their strategies towards the region with the special attention to the EU. Finally, it presents recommendations for the improvement of the economic performance in light of the enhanced political cooperation between the EU and the region.

Germany in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict: a political or a humanitarian mission? OSW Commentary No. 163, 2015-02-18

Since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, profound changes in Germany’s thinking about Russia, its political elite and foreign policy, can be observed. The trust most German politicians had in their former strategic partner has now lessened. At the same time, Germany has been particularly involved in the process of resolving the conflict, which was demonstrated by the intensive diplomatic actions it undertook. When these failed, Chancellor Angela Merkel did not hesitate to force through the introduction and maintenance of economic sanctions. At the same time, however, this evolution in Germany’s thinking about Russia has not translated into any change in the two basic assumptions of the German attitude towards a possible solution to the conflict. First, Germany supports the concept of ‘strategic patience’ in politics in the context of Russia’s aggression. Second, it is convinced that Europe is fated to cooperate with the Russian Federation, and Europe’s welfare and security are only possible with Russia as a partner in cooperation, not against it or without it. Therefore, in the immediate future no radical change in Germany’s policy as pursued so far should be expected. This provokes questions concerning not only the effectiveness of Berlin’s current actions, but also – in a broader sense – Germany’s ability to negotiate and achieve real, political solutions to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, reaching beyond (another) ceasefire. The Minsk agreements of 12 February can be considered a success worthy of a humanitarian mission carried out in the hope of reducing the number of casualties. However, the political mission undertaken by Chancellor Merkel and Foreign Minister Steinmeier aimed at “ensuring Europe’s security order”[1] has so far resulted in the sense of helplessness and frustration which have recently dominated Germany’s policy towards Russia[2].

Reshaping politics of the left and centre in Greece after the 2014 EP election. EPIN Commentary No. 21/10 September 2014

The political landscape in Greece is confused and volatile at the moment; the right and extreme- right-wing parties are accorded a disproportionately large place in political debate, while the radical left-wing SYRIZA party is attempting to maintain a ‘leftist’ profile and demonstrate its capacity to govern through a strategy of image normalisation. These tensions make it very difficult for the Greek government to stick to the EU’s tough reform agenda. The governing coalition is trying to conceal the social effects of implementing structural policy reforms, even postponing some measures to avoid bearing their political cost. At the same time, it is adopting a very rushed, and thus quite worrying, attitude towards a fast-track growth agenda, without taking into consideration the conditions for sustainable economic development.

Big business in the Russian economy and politics under Putin's rule; The Russian power industry shortly before reforms; Ukrainian metallurgy: the economic link in the oligarchical system. OSW Study 5/2002

Big business in Russia: The pace of ownership transfer in the Russian economy has speeded up considerably over the last year. There has been a significant rise in the number of acquisitions of whole enterprises, and large blocks of shares in individual firms and plants. Similarly the number of mergers, bankruptcies and take-overs of failing firms by their strongest competitors has grown. The Russian power industry: This study is an overview of the current condition and principles on which the Russian power sector has been functioning so far. This analysis has been carried out against the background of the changes that have been taking place in the sector since the beginning of the 1990s. This text also contains a description of guidelines and progress made so far in implementing the reform of the Russian power industry, the draft of which was adopted by the government of the Russian Federation in summer 2001. However, the purpose of this study is not an economic analysis of the draft, but an attempt to present the political conditions and possible consequences of the transformations carried out in the Russian power sector. The final part attempts to evaluate the possibilities and threats related to the implementation of the reform in its present shape. Ukrainian metallurgy: The metallurgic sector, like the east-west transit of energy raw materials, is a strategic source of revenue for Ukraine. Over the last ten years, this sector has become Kiev's most important source of foreign currency inflows, accounting for over 40 per cent of its total export revenues. The growth of metallurgic production, which has continued almost without interruption since the mid-1990s, has contributed considerably to the increase in GDP which Ukraine showed in 2000, for the first time in its independent history.

The Drivers of Current Account Surplus in Germany and the Politics of Rebalancing in the Eurozone. EU Centre, Singapore Working Paper No. 24, April 2015

Current account deficits have caught the public’s attention as they have contributed to the European debt crisis. However, surpluses also constitute an issue as a deficit in any country must be financed through a surplus in another country. In 2013, Germany, now the world’s largest surplus economy, registered a record high US$273 billion surplus. This paper looks at what accounts for Germany’s surplus, revealing that the major driving factors include strong global demand for quality German exports, domestic wage restraint, an undervalued single currency, high domestic savings rate and interest rate convergence in the euro area. This paper echoes the US Treasury’s view that a persistent German surplus makes it harder for the eurozone as a whole and the southern peripheral economies in particular to recover from the current financial crisis by imposing a Europe-wide “deflationary bias” through pushing up the exchange rate of the euro, exporting feeble German inflation and projecting its ultra-tight macroeconomic policies onto crisis economies. This paper contends that Germany’s trade surplus is likely to endure as Germany and other eurozone countries uphold diverging views on the nature of the surplus engage in a blame-game amidst a sluggish rebalancing process. Prizing the surplus as a reflection of hard work and economic competitiveness, German authorities urge their southern eurozone colleagues to undertake bold structural reforms to correct the imbalance, while the hand-tied governments in crisis-stricken economies call on Germany to do its “homework” by boosting German demands for European goods and services.

1 + 1 = 3? EU-US voting cohesion in the United Nations General Assembly. EU Diplomacy Paper 07/2012, September 2012

This paper investigates the factors that explain the voting cohesion of the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) on foreign policy issues in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). It is often argued that the EU and the US are simply too different to cooperate within international organizations and thus to vote the same way, for example, in the UNGA. However, there is still a lack of research on this point and, more importantly, previous studies have not analyzed which factors explain EU-US voting cohesion. In this paper, I try to fill this gap by studying voting cohesion from 1980 until 2011 on issues of both ‘high’ politics (security) and ‘low’ politics (human rights) not only as regards EU-US voting cohesion, but also concerning voting cohesion among EU member states. I test six hypotheses derived from International Relations theories, and I argue that EU-US voting cohesion is best explained by the topic of the issue voted upon, whether an issue is marked as ‘important’ by the US government, and by the type of resolution. On the EU level, the length of Union membership and transaction costs matter most.

Cittadinanza, lavoro e diritti sociali nella crisi europea = Citizenship, work and social rights in the European crisis. WP C.S.D.L.E. “Massimo D’Antona”.INT – 100/2013

This paper explores the limits and potentials of European citizenship as a transnational form of social integration, taking as comparison Marshall's classical analysis of the historical development of social rights in the context of the national Welfare State. It is submitted that this potential is currently frustrated by the prevailing negative-integration dimension in which the interplay between Union citizenship and national systems of Welfare State takes place. This negative dimension pervades the entire case law of the Court of Justice on Union citizenship, even becoming dominant – after the famous Viking and Laval judgements – in the ways in which the judges in Luxembourg have built, and limited, what in Marshall’s terms might be called the European collective dimension of “industrial citizenship”. The new architecture of the economic and monetary governance of the Union, based as it is on an unprecedented effort towards a creeping constitutionalisation of a neo-liberal politics of austerity and welfare retrenchment, is destined to strengthen the de-structuring pressures on the industrial-relation and social protection systems of the member States. The conclusions sum-up the main critical arguments and make some suggestions for an alternative path for re-politicising the social question in Europe.

National Minorities, Nationalizing States, and External National Homelands in the New Europe. Notes toward a Relational Analysis. Institute of Advanced Studies Political Science Series, 11 December 1993

Nationalism remains central to politics in and among the new nation-states. Far from »solving« the region's national question, the most recent reconfiguration of political space – the replacement of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia by some twenty would-be nation-states – only recast it in a new form. It is this new phase and form of the national question that I explore in this paper. I begin by outlining a particular relational configuration – the triadic relational nexus between national minorities, nationalizing states, and external national homelands – that is central to the national question in post-Soviet Eurasia. In the second, and most substantial, section of the paper, I argue that each of the »elements« in this relational nexus – minority, nationalizing state, and homeland – should itself be understood in dynamic and relational terms, not as a fixed, given, or analytically irreducible entity but as a field of differentiated positions and an arena of struggles among competing »stances.« In a brief concluding section, I return to the relational nexus as a whole, underscoring the dynamically interactive quality of the triadic interplay.

Migration in the Central Mediterranean. Jean Monnet Occasional Papers 02/2013

In the last decade irregular immigration has emerged as a “security” challenge (in the language of International Relations military “threat”) in the Mediterranean region particularly in the central, sub-region1. The designation of this issue as a “security challenge” or “threat” is itself controversial and will be discussed further down. This paper focuses on the situation in the central Mediterranean involving mainly four countries namely Italy, Libya, Malta and Tunisia all of which have long standing historic links and bilateral relations and participate in the so called “5+5” Dialogue in the Western Mediterranean. Two of these Central Mediterranean countries (Italy, Malta) are EU member states and Tunisia has a long standing relationship with the EU [Association Agreement, Barcelona Process (EMP), Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), Union for the Mediterranean (UfM)] while Libya so far has no formal relations at all with the EU. This paper analyses some of the aspects of migration in the central Mediterranean focusing on the link between the domestic and international politics of the issue in Italy and Malta and contrasting the different approaches taken. For example, although Italy and Malta both resort to self-help and both try to involve the EU in helping them tackle the problem, they do this in a markedly different way: Italy uses the EU as a supplement to its independent and bilateral efforts while Malta looks to the EU as the major solution to the problem. Lacking the power and influence to deal with the issue, Malta tends to see the problem as primarily a multilateral issue or one that can only be tackled in concert with stronger powers in the region preferably within an EU context. On the other hand, Italy has been keen in involving the EU but decided to go it alone when this option turned out to be a dead end. In this paper I also try to show the extent (or limitations) to which multilateral initiatives such as the “5+5” and Euro operation really play a decisive role in incentivizing or facilitating inter-state cooperation or joint solutions. This paper also refers to the EU acquis, the notion of solidarity (norms) and the extent to which it is implemented as well as a number of connected issues. The subjects of this paper, the Mediterranean Boat People, have been referred to by various names in the literature, all of which may be more or less deficient in actually defining them all. They have been referred to as “illegal” or “irregular” immigrants, “refugees” in search of international protection, “migrants at sea” and “boat people”. The use of “boat people” dispenses with the need of having to define the various categories of migrants involved and is thus preferred in this paper.

‘Wrong number?’ The Use and Misuse of Asylum Data in the European Union. CEPS Paper in Liberty and Security in Europe No. 69/December 2014

The Common European Asylum System (CEAS) is an EU policy area that is particularly evocative of the ‘politics of numbers’. The European Union has at its disposal a wide array of sources providing detailed information about the capacities and pressures of its member states’ asylum systems. This paper discusses the content of asylum data and the evolving interaction between its different sources, ranging from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to the European Commission’s EUROSTAT and DG HOME, the European Asylum Support Office, FRONTEX, the European Migration Network (EMN) and national databases. However, the way in which such data are often misused, or even omitted, in political debate affects the soundness of policy decisions in the CEAS. Drawing on debates over the contested phenomenon of ‘asylum shopping’ and the exemption of victims of torture and unaccompanied minors from accelerated and border procedures in the recast asylum procedures Directive, this briefing paper argues that solid data-based evidence is often absent from political negotiations on CEAS measures affecting refugees and asylum-seekers.

State (un)Sustainability in the Southern Mediterranean and Scenarios to 2030: The EU’s Response. MEDPRO Policy Paper No. 1/August 2011(updated April 2012)

This research project is the product of a conviction, corroborated by the events that have overwhelmed the Arab world since December 2010, that sustainability is essential to any understanding of Mediterranean politics. Sustainability has too often been confused with stability in policy debates in the region and in the West. Not only are these two concepts distinct, with sustainability being broader and deeper than stability, but stability, as interpreted with regard to the regimes in the region, has often run counter to the very conditions that underpin state sustainability. Believing and thus pursuing regime stability has ultimately acted to the detriment of a more organic understanding of state sustainability.

Germany and the Eurocrisis: The timing of politics and the politics of timing. ACES Cases No. 2014.3

This paper speculates on the future of the euro. It uses Germany as a prism for the discussion about what might be done next to bolster the Euro. Researching the future—always a challenging task—is made harder when multiple state actors contend for prominence on the basis of shifting coalitions at home, all while interacting at an international level. That said, almost everyone accepts that German choices will play the central role in the path ultimately chosen. This paper thus foregrounds Germany’s role in shaping the way ahead, and it does so through an explicitly political framework focused primarily on the electoral implausibility of an alternative German policy course.